Dear Colleagues, ACL is pleased to announce the release of Frequently Asked Questions on Independent Living Services for Children and Youth with Disabilities (Youth Services FAQ), which was developed in response to questions from grantees about the  provisions for transitions of youth  included in the  Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014 (WIOA).

  ACL has opened a new funding opportunity to establish Centers for Independent Living in Guam, American Samoa, and Pennsylvania. The goal of this opportunity is to expand and improve the provision of independent living services in the targeted areas and to support statewide networks of these centers. There are currently no Centers for Independent Living (CILs) funded in Guam, American Samoa, and the three county area (Allegheny, Armstrong, and Westmoreland) surrounding Pittsburgh, PA.

  The Self Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center (SAR-TAC) is launching a new website at www.selfadvocacyinfo.org to help fulfill its mission to strengthen self-advocacy for people with disabilities by supporting self-advocacy organizations to grow in diversity and leadership.

  ACL's Paralysis Resource Center (PRC), operated by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, is announcing a Nursing Home Transition grant program for Centers for Independent Living (CILs)* across the country. Four grants up to $40,000 each will be awarded to transition people living with paralysis in nursing homes back into their homes or a community-based setting of their choice.

The AARP Public Policy Institute released No Wrong Door: Person- and Family-Centered Practices in Long-Term Services and Supports and Checklist this week at the American Society on Aging conference.

At ACL, we believe that every person should be able to make choices and to control their own decisions, regardless of their age, disability, or illness. ACL, in consultation with stakeholders from the aging and disability communities, has drafted a set of principles to guide our work in this area, and to enhance existing programs and services related to serious or advanced illness for older adults and people with disabilities.

The annual summary of the latest statistics on the older population, A Profile of Older Americans: 2016, is now available. This profile covers 15 topical areas including population, income and poverty, living arrangements, education, health, and caregiving. A description of the highlights of this document is below and the full document is attached. The profile has proven to be a very useful statistical summary in a user friendly format.  =============================================================== Highlights*

The Older Americans Act of 1965, as amended through P.L. 114-144 in 2016, included a provision requiring the Assistant Secretary for Aging to issue guidance to the Aging Services Network on serving Holocaust survivors.

In 2014, regulation was issued by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services which finalized the criteria for home and community-based services (HCBS) for the purposes of Medicaid funding. The criteria require settings receiving HCBS funding to facilitate beneficiary independence and decision-making in defining desired community-based living.

In a new handbook from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services entitled "Coordination of Benefits and Third Party Liability (COB/TPL) in Medicaid," guidance is provided that services provided under the Older Americans Act are an exception to the "Medicaid is payer of last resort" rule.